11.15.2008

Fear Number 2

I'm still amazed by the divisiveness of the election. People who normally profess the same beliefs, hopes, wonders and fears, people who would, in most cases, agree especially about the fundamental truths of their faith and their relationship with Christ, have taken up (and still reside) on opposite sides of enemy lines. And it confuses me for one reason: when Jesus came, he did not come to establish a political kingdom. He was not concerned with the Roman occupation, as Philip Yancey says in his book, The Jesus I Never Knew. This is a whole world apart from God’s Kingdom. I think too many Christians are placing their hope in the non-existent saving powers of government, believing that legislation equals redemption. It doesn't. It never will. It was never Jesus' goal while he was on earth. So why the fear of God's judgement on the country, when all we have control over is his judgement on ourselves individually?

But on the other side of fear is apathy and disrespect. There are people who are too spiritually motivated to care about our present and physical world. We saw the repercussions of this thought trend in the early twentieth century, when a generation decided they didn’t care about the poor, the hurting, because the “social gospel,” as they hatefully termed it, endangered the true Gospel message (it did in extreme cases, but that's another story). Today some people are still choosing this stance, especially when it comes to respecting and caring for our world. It’ll all pass away anyway, right? Why should we make the effort to recycle? To conserve energy? To provide food and shelter and healing for people? But to think this way is crazy. It would be like not going to the doctor when you’re sick because you know you’ll die eventually anyway. There are people out there who can't even begin to care about their spiritual wellness (or in fact, care about it more than we know because it's all they have) until their physical needs are met.

Too many of us are driven by unnecessary fear. In other words, we fear something that's out of our hands. I will not spend my life in California worrying that my stuff will get stolen. First of all, it's just stuff. Second of all, to use a still too underrated phrase: worrying doesn't solve anything. It's true. And this is true for our country as well.